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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

have recognized these facts and rejected Bolton's relatively benevolent charac-terization of the Coronado expedition, Flint combines his mastery of the docu-ments with insights from ethnohistorical and archaeological literature to moreprecisely delineate the expedition's consequences. Most notably, he argues thatthe considerable destruction and violence that the expedition committed in themiddle Rio Grande Valley resulted in profound disruption to the Tiwa Pueblosand the eventual encroachment upon the northern fringe of Tiwa territory byKeres Pueblos.Historians of the Spanish borderlands have long benefited from the efforts ofan earlier generation that scoured archives in Mexico and Spain for documentsrelevant to the history of the Southwest that they then translated and published.Richard Flint's thorough, careful, and deeply contextualized book is a model ofwhat a new generation of documentary collections should look like.Harvard University Brian DeLayA Fighter from Way Back: The Mexican War Diary of Lt. Danzel Harvey Hill, 4th Ar-tillery, USA. Edited by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. and Timothy D. John-son. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2oo2. Pp. xvi+231. Maps andIllustrations, preface, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-87338-736-2.$14.0o, cloth.)Like many veterans of the Mexican War, West Point graduate Daniel HarveyHill is better known for his service in the Civil War. Yet as an officer in the 4thArtillery, Hill entered Mexico in June 1846 and left in 1848 only after hostilitiesended. He fought in his first battle at Monterrey, after which he joined theAmerican landing at Veracruz. As the U.S. invasion force marched toward Mexi-co City, Hill found himself involved in every major battle of the campaign.This diary is that of a young man who was Anglo-Saxonist, anti-Catholic, andintensely distrustful of those in authority. Hill's prejudices led him to label Mexi-cans as superstitious, depraved, and inferior. However, he also criticized his owncountrymen, especially the volunteers. He derided them for their drunken an-tics, poor discipline, and the atrocities they committed against Mexican citizens.His pen also spared few regular officers, including his own commanding gener-als. Hill was an adamant Whig, and he condemned Democratic president JamesK. Polk and the officers who were among "Mr. Polk's precious appointments" (p.166).Hill's lack of objectivity actually makes his diary all the more valuable, becauseso many published Mexican War diaries and letters are crowded with hyperbolicpraises of fellow soldiers or caricatures of swooning Mexican women. Despite hisacerbity and predilections, Hill's descriptions of battles, camp life, the Mexicanlandscape, and the variety of problems encountered by Americans in Mexico aremeticulous and informative. Hill possessed a remarkable knowledge of the dif-ferent companies and their commanders. While he praised John Coffee Hays'sTexas Rangers for their guerilla-hunting (and killing) skills and acknowledgedtheir role in the war effort, he also called them the "villains" and "cut-throatsfrom Texas" (p. 146).Hughes and Johnson have succeeded in balancing the need to preserve Hill's